Summer

Watermelon Rind Pickles

September 8, 2015 Leave a Comment

I know summer is winding up, but you should really go get yourself one last watermelon, if only for the rind.

I did not grow up eating watermelon rind pickles, but a yellowed newspaper clipping lodged among my great-aunt Marnie’s recipes spurred me to give them a try.

Watermelon rind pickles are the ultimate in thrifty — made from the part of the melon that is usually discarded anyway.

This summer, we’ve been giving our watermelon rinds to the chickens for a cool and refreshing treat on super hot days, so they really weren’t going to waste, but I decided to set aside some rind for pickling purposes too and I’m so glad that I did….

Game Changer Peach Cobbler

August 28, 2015 Leave a Comment

When it comes to peaches, I am a cobbler girl all the way.

Sure, I like peach pie, and I would never turn down a crumble or crisp. I also love peaches sliced over my morning yogurt, eaten straight out of hand, baked into bar cookies with a shortbread crust or turned into preserves and spread on hot biscuits.

But, in my book, nothing beats peach cobbler.

The thing about cobbler is that there’s no one definition for it. We Southerners can get pretty passionate about cobbler, but even in the same general region (or, for that matter, even in the same family) two people can have vastly different ideas of just what constitutes this homey dessert.

My dad is a big fan of cobbler made with pie crust, similar to a deep-dish pie, with the possible addition of little scraps of dough tucked into the filling, so that they will bake up like almost dumplings.

Meanwhile, I was always adamant that the best cobblers were topped not with pie dough, but with barely-sweet buttermilk biscuits.

This summer my allegiance shifted. …

Tomato Chutney

August 21, 2015 Leave a Comment

When we decided to move (much, much) closer to my parents, I expected the free babysitting to be a big perk and it definitely is.

But a little more than a year later, I’ve learned there are other benefits too, like being the lucky beneficiary of 15+ pounds of tomatoes my mom picked up on whim from a roadside stand.

Fifteen pounds is a lot of tomatoes, even for someone like me, who considers the archetypal tomato sandwich one of summer’s greatest pleasures and whose toddler pounds cherry tomatoes like candy….

Summer Vacation Potato Salad

August 6, 2015 Leave a Comment

I know I’m a little late to the party, but Please Pass the Peas finally joined Instragram (@pleasepeas, in case you want to follow along).

Lately, my feed has been nothing but pictures of other people’s vacations: Hawaii, Maine, Michigan. Sun everywhere.

Not here though. Here the rain is pouring down, the lights are flickering and I’m racing to get this post up before the internet goes out.

Fortunately, we had much better weather for our own vacation a few weeks ago. We stayed in a beach condo owned by the parents of some friends and did nothing but swim, read and play board games for days….